Mystra pauses, her lined face careful. Talk of madness always silences Lenore, wrinkles her brow with questions that have no kind answer.
I steal the chocolate from her hands, sloshing it onto my chin as I gulp down the dregs. “Let’s make more,” I say.
Leni swallows hard and shakes her head. “We’ll spoil our supper.” Her voice is quiet and sad, and I hate Mystra for making her cry.
Our tutor leans forward in her chair, cups Leni’s chin and brushes a tear from her cheek. “Shall we move on to languages then?”
Leni forces a grin and shakes her head. “Finish the story, Mystra. Please.”
“Very well,” she says, straightening as best she can. “The shipwreck, I believe?”
With a huff, I push away from the hearth, my face hot from the flames. “The Kerce survivors had just washed up on the island,” I say. I hate this part of the story. Where everything becomes Winter’s fault.
“Ah. Yes,” Mystra Dyfan says. “And though it was the Shiv who came to their aid, it was in this broken people that Winter saw her chance.”
A chill breath of air stirs the hairs curling on my neck, and I turn toward the window. Leni’s dishrag has fallen to the floor. I wander closer, Mystra’s voice following me as I go.
“Like the Kerce queen,” she says, “Winter knew what it was to have her home stolen from beneath her throne. And so she waited. And she planned. And when the time was right, Winter struck a bargain that buried Shiv Island in snow.”
I’VE SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU, Winter whispers, her voice skating inside.
In the window’s reflection, I see Leni and Mystra tucked in comfortably, the fire wrapping them in warmth.
Will they notice if I slip away?
NOT IF YOU’RE FAST, Winter says. QUICK! QUICK!
A giggle grows in my belly and I flip the latch, flinging myself out the window. The snow is knee deep and I have to fight my way toward the corner of the tavern. I chance a peek over my shoulder just as Lenore’s braids swing into view above the sill.
“Sylvi!” she calls. “You promised Grandfather you wouldn’t!”
But Old Man Drypp isn’t much for discipline. I flatten myself against the wall and Winter laughs, a rumble that sets the icicles ringing overhead.
“Foolish child,” Mystra grumbles.
“She’ll be back,” Leni tells her. “She always comes back.”
“My dear girl,” Mystra says, the window squealing on its hinges. “I’m not entirely sure she was ever here.”
CHAPTER 1
Seven Years Later
Winter doesn’t like the smuggler who’s come to Whistletop. She doesn’t trust him, doesn’t want me to take this job.
HE’S A LIAR, she says.
“Then you should have stopped him. Should have kept him away from Lenore,” I mutter.
But she’s not listening to me just now. She’s too busy blustering.
I swipe a gloved hand over my face, wiping away the sleet. Across the lot sits Drypp’s tavern, alive with light and noise. It’s a two-level structure, part waste rock, part timber, snow piled high on the roof, wood smoke rising from the chimney. There’s a diverse assortment of rigs parked outside tonight. Big trucks and small ones. Some with studded snow tires. Some with chains. A few have trailers still hitched, but most have dumped their hauls and are settling in for a hibernation of sorts that will take them clean through the wet season.
Our rooms are above the kitchen, Lenore’s and mine. Her windows are bright, a flame flickering somewhere inside. A curtain shifts and, for a moment, I swear she’s there behind the glass.
But they’re frauds, those windows. Lenore’s gone. And if I can’t get her back quickly, we’ll lose everything we have.
We’re not sisters, but we well could be. Raised, both of us, by Lenore’s grandfather, Old Man Drypp. The tavern was his and the garage behind me too. He’d kept up his taxable relations with the Majority, so when he died two Rymes back, they allowed the property to pass to us. A small victory for mountain folk. But there are rules. And we have to be here. One of us has to be here.
The storm bucks and, like that, the village vanishes in a swirl of snow and ice. I tuck my white braid into my stocking cap and sink deeper into my hood.
Whistletop is a depot of sorts—a last-chance stop for a hot meal and an engine check before the trucking turns hazardous. Winter’s only given us the two seasons here: the freezing months of Ryme, and the miserable wet months of Blys. Rig driving in the Kol Mountains is difficult in either season, but we’re entering the Flux, the melting weeks where the ice and snow give way to rain. The frozen roads that have formed across lakes and rivers will thaw. Snow slips from its rocky ledges in great wide sheets, blanketing towns and roads, making trade—and trucking, in particular—a hazardous way to earn coin until Ryme returns and our island freezes solid once again.
I wouldn’t take this job unless I had to.
Winter knows I wouldn’t. And still she rages.
Her words are everywhere. Above me, below me, seeping into the soles of my boots and climbing up my calves. She’s cold on my skin and blistering as a stove fire in my chest. That’s how it always is when Winter speaks to me.
HE’S COMING, she says. CAREFUL NOW.
Mars Dresden’s early. It’s not yet midnight when he emerges from the tavern and crosses toward the garage. Several feet of snow have fallen in the last day and a half, but beneath his boots, the ground is dry; the storm that blows the rest of us sideways is nothing but a soft breeze on his uncovered head.
No wonder Winter hates him.
Beyond him, swamped in snow and wind, I see the outline of two or three others. I could wait out here for them, but I don’t. I retreat into the garage, hollering at the guys finishing up repairs, and take my place in front of my rig.
When Mars sweeps through the garage doors, there’s not a flake of snow on him, and his black leather coat has its zipper undone. Around his neck hangs a small medicine bag—dark leather ribbon and a beaded pouch that rests against his sternum. My childhood tutor had one that looked similar. I never did find out what she carried inside it.
The smuggler’s flanked by a short, stocky man and a woman who stands taller than both of them. Hyla, she calls herself. She’s unmistakably Paradyian, with golden skin and eyes, and a thick mane of hair that hangs in long curls over the shoulders of her red jacket. She lifts the goggles from her nose and perches them atop her head, her eyes narrowed. She doesn’t like me much, not after I turned down the job she offered, but my fight is with her boss—a man I know only by reputation.
Mars Dresden’s black eyes are legendary in the Kol Mountains. A village boy said he paid a Shiv warlock to cut them out and replace them with kol from the rock beneath our feet, but whoever started that rumor hasn’t seen him from as close a distance as this. It’s not stone buried in his face. The black orbs—no white to speak of and not a hint of color—are clearly natural. He was born this way. He’s Kerce through and through.
“Miss Quine,” he says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I’ve heard plenty about him too. Mars had a reputation long before he arrived in Whistletop, but I hear he’s been spending a fair share of his time hanging around the tavern while I’ve been out on runs.